Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary - Faculty of Social Sciences

22 I-IISTORY OF THE EDITIONS. HISTORY OF THE EDITIONS. 23the attention of the world, and I would rather live and diein obscurity than produce them inaimed and imperfectl.' Such a miserable disappointment I scarce ever rememberto have heard of. The small distance betwixt me and perfecthealth makes me the more uneasy in my present situation.It is a weakness rather than a lowness of spirits whichtroubles me, and there seems to be as great a differencebetwixt my distemper and comnlon vapours, as betwixtvapours and madness. I have noticed in the writings of theFrench mystics, and in those of our fanatics here, that whenthey give a history of the situation of their souls, they mentiona coldness and desertion of the spirit, which frequentlyreturns; and some of them, at the beginning, have beentormented with it many years. As this kind of devotiondepends entirely on the force of passion, a.nd consequently ofthe animal spirits, I have often thought that their case andmine were pretty parallel, and that their rapturous admirationsmight discompose the fabric of the nerves and brain, asmuch as profound reflections, and that warmth or enthusiasmwhich is inseparable from them.' However this may be, I have not come out of the cloudso well as they commonly tell us they have done, or ratherbegan to despair of ever recovering. To keep myself frombeing melancholy on so dismal a prospect, my only securitywas iil peevish reflections 011 the vanity of the world and ofall hlunan glory ; which, however just sentiments they maybe esteemed, I have found can never be sincere, except inthose who are possessed of them. Being sensible that allmy philosophy would never make me contented in my presentsituation, I began to rouse up myself; and being encouragedby instances of recovery from worse degrees of this distemper,as well as by the assurances of my physicians, I began tothink of something more effectual than I had hitherto trizd.I found, that as there are two things very bad for this distemper,study and idleness, so there are two things very good,business and diversion; and that my whole time was spentbetwixt the bad, with little or no share of the good. Forthis reason I resolved to seek out a more active life, andthough I could not quit nly pretensions in learning but withmy last breath, to lay them aside for some time, in order themore effectually to resume them. Upon examination, I foundmy choice confined to two kinds of life, that of a travellinggovernor, and that of a merchant. The first, besides that itis in some respects an idle life, was, I found, unfit for me ;and that because from a sedentary and retired way of living,from a bashful temper, and fiom a narrow fortune, I had beenlittle accustomed to general companies, and had not confidenceand knowledge enough of the world to push my fortune, orto be serviceable in that way. I therefore fixed my choiceupon a merchant; and having got recommendation to a considerabletrader in Bristol, I am just now hastening thither,with a resolution to forget myself, and every thing that ispast, to engage myself, as far as is possible, in that course oflife, and to toss about the world, from the one pole to theother, till I leave this distemper behind me.'In consequence of this indisposition, his friends inducedhim to enter a merchant's office at Bristol ; but after a brieftrial he returned to his favourite pursuits, and crossing toFrance, and settling ' first at Reims, but chiefly at La Flbchein Anjou,' he occupied three years in collecting the passagesin his manuscripts which dealt with the philosophies of Lockeand Berkeley, and in preparing them for the press. Towardsthe close of 1737 he left France, and came to London, tonegotiate for the publication of two volumes of a ' Treatiseof Human Nature.' The following letters to Henry Home,afterwards Lord Kames, deserve to be quoted :-' London, December 2, 1737.' DEAR SIR,-I am sorry I ail1 not able to satisfy yourcuriosity by giving you some general notion of the plan uponwhich I proceed. But my opinions are so new, and evensome terms that I am obliged to make use of, that I couldnot propose, by any abridgment, to give my system an air oflikelihood, or so much as make it intelligible. It is a thingI have in vain attempted already, at a gentleman's request inthis place, who thought it would help him to comprehend andjudge of my notions, if he saw thein all at once before him.I have had a greater desire of commnnicating to you theplan of the whole, that I believe it will not a,ppear in publicbefore the beginning of next winter. For, besides that itwould be difficult to have it printed before the rising of theparliament, I must confess I am not ill pleased with a litt,ledelay, that it may appear with as few inlperfections as possible.I have been here near three months, always within a